Diversify Your Reading Challenge: Contemporary Fiction

Because as a person I am not particularly interested in fiction, and as manager of the BDC I don't have to "do" fiction, I had to look up what the July 2022 category meant.  According to Novelist+ the key aspects of "Contemporary Fiction" are that it is based in current times, has human characters, and includes no elements of fantasy. The pickings are pretty slim for this category in the BDC. If not T.D. Johnston and the Short Story America series published in Beaufort, SC, I would have little to share with you today. 

T.D. Johnston is a  Beaufort resident and award winning short story writer. We purchased a copy of Weeding for Eisenhower: Stories (2021) a collection of 18 stand alone tales that one reviewer called "oral storytelling written down with an honesty and urgency of a writer at the top of his form." The BDC is the only unit within SCLENDS to hold this particular title. We also purchased a copy of his  Friday Afternoon and Other Stories (2016) which contains a dozen of Johnston's tales. The Beaufort County Library holds 4 of the 6 copies of this title within SCLENDS. (Literary history is important too.)  

In addition to being a writer of the short story form, Johnston edits the Short Story America series. According to the Short Story America website, its "mission is to bring the short story back into the mainstream of American culture, to bring the short story author back into prominence in American literature, and to enhance American students' awareness and education in the art and value of the short story." 

Volume 1 (shown above in shiny orange) entitled Short Story America Anthology contained "56 Great Contemporary Short Stories" (and no copyright publication date on the title page or the verso of the title page but which came out in 2011). Each subsequent volume has fewer short stories but seems to have stabilized around to 30 - 35 selections per volume. I like that Johnston included Author Biographies in volumes 1 - 4. You can see the Table of Contents (abbreviated v. TOC) on the Short Story America website under the "Anthology" tab as shown in the image below.

There are at present a total of 6 volumes containing more than 225 short stories that you can enjoy inside the Research Room, subject to staff availability to sit with you.